Emotions underneath

Calistas pov

The question hit me like a physical blow. The professional, confident mask I had been wearing all afternoon suddenly cracked.

A sudden, sharp wave of old rage flared up deep in my gut, hot and suffocating. I gripped the edge of my wooden desk so tightly my knuckles turned white.

"How do I handle it?" I whispered, my voice thick with sudden, bitter emotion. I looked up at him, refusing to hide the anger burning in my eyes. "It was hell, alpha.”

I let my words simmer for a minute before continuing through bitter rage.

“The day I turned eighteen, the entire pack gathered at the clearing, waiting for me to shift,” I started, my mind playing that day vividly to me. “My father is an elder, Jake was the future Alpha, and everyone expected me to become the perfect Luna. And nothing happened.”

I adjusted my stance, staring at my hands with my cheeks flushing in embarrassment as I said the next part.

“Everyone wanted me to shift into a wolf. Instead I just stood there in front of everyone, naked and completely human."

Magnus didn't interrupt. He just watched me, his expression completely still, absorbing every word.

"The ridicule started the very next morning," I continued, my jaw trembling as the memories rushed back. "The whispers in the pack house. The pity from the older wolves. The way the warriors looked at me like I was a broken glass plate that couldn't be fixed. Jake started pulling away from me that exact week, treating me like a burden. That was when I noticed the first rift in our relationship. I was the chief elder's broken daughter."

I took a deep, shaky breath, my chest heaving as I stared at the massive King before me.

"I grew so sick of the pity," I said, my voice hardening. "I grew so sick of feeling helpless. That’s why I decided to train twice as hard as any warrior in the gym. I learned how to fight with my bare hands because I didn't have claws to rely on. And when my body couldn't go any further, I locked myself in this room and started studying the science of why I couldn't transform. I wanted to prove to them that I wasn't broken. I just had a different lock."

The silence that followed was heavy, filled with an unbearable emotional tension. Magnus stood perfectly still, just inches away from me. The proximity was overwhelming. I could see the intricate lines of the dark tattoos running up his neck, and I could feel the sheer, raw power vibrating beneath his skin. He wasn't looking at me with pity. He was looking at me with respect.

Somehow the hum within me got stronger the more we stayed together. I wondered if he felt it too. Was this something I needed to study or was it just a normal thing with him since he was the alpha king.

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my racing heart. I looked up into his deep, dark eyes and took a daring step forward.

"What about you?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Why couldn't you shift?"

Magnus let out a long, slow breath. He looked down at his large, tattooed hands, flexing his fingers slightly.

"I don't know," he said, his voice carrying a weary weight that shocked me. "I have been on this planet for more than a hundred years, Calista. A century of watching Alphas grow, shift, and die. And I still don't know what is going on inside my own body."

"A hundred years..." I breathed, stunned by the admission.

"Yes," Magnus said, looking back up to lock his eyes with mine. "But either way, I didn't let it stop me. Because I couldn't rely on a wolf’s claws, I spent decades traveling the territories, learning every single fighting skill known to our kind and to humans. I mastered strategy, martial arts, weapons, and psychological warfare. That is how I became an Alpha. That is how I took the throne. I became a monster without ever needing to grow fur."

I stared at him, completely captivated. The shared understanding between us was so much it was terrifying. We were both outcasts who had forced the world to bow to us anyway.

I turned back to my desk, my hands shaking as I opened a blue folder, trying to break the intensity of the moment. "Look at this section here. This is where my recent data cuts off."

Magnus leaned over my shoulder to look at the papers. His chest brushed against my back for a split second, and a literal spark of heat shot straight down my spine.

"You hit a wall here," Magnus noted, his finger tracing a line of incomplete blood chemical charts. "The data just stops. What happened?"

I let out a frustrated sigh, tapping the paper as I tried to ignore what I was feeling being near him. "Yes, I did hit a wall. But that is only because in my pack, we don't have the facilities for this kind of work. Our science team... well, they aren't really science team people. They focus almost entirely on ancient moon magic, rituals, and traditional healers who can mend broken bones with herbs. They don't care about advanced genetics or biochemical cellular structures. They don't focus on going far in technological advancements, so I ran out of equipment."

"I have the best labs in the capital," Magnus said, his voice dangerously close to my ear. "I have technology that could help."

I nodded then looked up at him before feeling something whine inside me.

I couldn’t understand why I was feeling this was towards him. It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of me and the hum started to take the silence between us.

Slowly, I noticed his gaze softening. He wasn’t as hard as the first time I laid eyes on him.

He wasn’t even scary anymore.

“What is it?” He asked in a whisper as I gasped.

“I don’t… know,” I muttered. And truly I didn’t. Something was happening that I didn’t know about. Somehow I doubted he did too by the way he stared at me like I was special.

He walked into my space until our breath hit each other. The hum between us got louder to a point it was physically shaking the windows.

Something was truly happening. It wasn’t in my mind any longer.

Was this nature or science? I couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, I hoped it had an answer because the confusion was driving me crazy.

“Do you feel…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a frantic, sharp knock rattled the wooden door of my study.

The door swung open immediately as mother stood in the doorway, her face completely pale, her hands gripping the doorframe so tightly her knuckles were white.

"Calista," my mother gasped, her eyes darting in sheer terror between me and the massive Alpha King. "Excuse me... I am so sorry for interrupting, your Majesty."

Magnus straightened up to his full height, his face instantly freezing into a cold, royal mask as he took a step away from me. "What is it?"

"Beta Paul and... and Alpha Jake are downstairs," my mother whispered, her voice trembling violently. "They are here in the living room to see Alpha King Magnus. And... and Paul said they are here to take Calista away back to the cells."

My blood ran completely cold. Jake is out of the healer's tent already?

I looked up at Magnus, my fear flaring back to life.

Magnus didn't even blink. He adjusted the cuffs of his leather tunic, his expression completely calm, though his dark eyes flashed with a lethal, icy blue light.

"Tell them to come inside," Magnus rumbled. “It’s time I met the alpha anyway.”